Taunting Murphy
by Duchess67
Summary: Sequel to Misguided Matchmaking. Darcy just had to go there, even in her own head, Murphy took the challenge.


Taunting Murphy

Disclaimer I don't own anything in the MCU, movies or comics and this is not for monetary profit, but I would appreciate some reviews.

Darcy was furious with Secretary of State Ross for coming up with the Accords. She refused to put the disaster he was taking advantage of at the front of what amounted to his own personal Christmas wish list since the Hulk first eluded him way back when at Culver. Both times!

She ranted and raved for a bit, throwing some curses Stark's way for being so damn easy to manipulate, not to mention being buddy-buddy with Ross, both in the past and present.

She was also kicking herself for not being available to go to Peggy Carter's funeral with her grandfather. She'd been trying every legal way she could to fight against Ross and when he pushed the Accords through anyway, she'd started on another, still legal, approach and so was tied to the process.

Steve of course, had let her off the hook, "I'm proud of what you're doing, Darcy. Keep up the good work and I'll see you again soon."

She thought she'd have time before something happened to make her very opinionated grandfather break this horrible new law and get into trouble. Then Darcy had seen the news coverage of the bombing of the ceremony in Vienna, supposedly by The Winter Soldier aka James Buchanan (Bucky) Barnes and she just knew everything was going to change. She was kicking herself for having taunted Murphy.

She stopped pacing and sat down at last, pulled her laptop to herself and got to work. Finding her online conspiracy theorist friends, she enlisted their help and they all started digging.

"Legality be damned, it is time to end this shit!" 

Memos written by then General Ross, explaining (his version anyway) of what the Hulk was and what "it" could mean for the military. Talking about killing and dissecting a human being, namely one Bruce Banner, one of the nicest men on the face of the Earth, simply because of what he could turn into.

All the damage done to Culver University, both times, and then Harlem and with recordings of Ross' own voice giving orders that ended up being the absolute worst thing he could have done, can we say, "Blonsky" and "Abomination?" Yes we can! Those were a gold mine!

Row after row of names of the soldiers and civilians killed because of Ross and his total OBSESSION with acquiring the Hulk over a period of at least five years.

One month after the whole fiasco in Vienna, Darcy had gone onto a primetime television talk show under false pretenses officially, but unofficially it had been sanctioned. She then proceeded to tell all of America every bit of information she and her friends had found, using her Starkpad to throw document after document up for all to see. Everything she showed was what could be found on public servers, in public records, etc. She had already been the public face of opposition to the Accords, this stunt made her an instant celebrity and within ten minutes of going on the air everyone with a television or a smart phone knew it.

Darcy went through as much of it in painstaking detail as possible, pointing out similarities in the wordings of the documents Ross had come up with eight years before and the Accords now, proving he didn't have a selfless reason behind anything he did. She and her friends had found public links between Ross and the most vocal of the signatories of the Accords, showing they'd been planning something along these lines for decades, wanting to be able to control the enhanced and use them to force their own agendas.

Each thing by itself could perhaps be explained away, but lumped together the way she had it and in chronological order, it was utterly damning!

At the same time she was on the air, her conspiracy theorist friends were making massive data dumps onto the internet of _everything else_ they'd found in not so legal ways. It was a blitzkrieg of information that Ross and his buddies had never wanted known. Every piece of his and their dirty laundry that could be found and some that shouldn't have, thrown out onto the world wide web for all to see. All on multiple sites and some of it even wound up on digital signs across the World, but especially in New York City.

To say that Darcy and her friends had stirred things up was an understatement of massive proportions.

A little over halfway through the program, she got a text on her phone from an unknown number. The text itself gave away who it was, at least to her.

Unknown #

**What are you doing? How did you even find half of this stuff? Did you break any laws? Are you going to get arrested?**

Since it was during a commercial break, she was able to answer.

**Exercising my rights as an American citizen. I have my ways. No I did not, so there's no reason for anyone to arrest ME.**

Unknown#

**Be careful poking that bear, Baby Girl.**

**It's all public record and I'm a public figure now. Too many questions if I disappear. Even Tony would pitch a fit, for all that I'm giving him hell these days. I'm good.**

It was an awesome day!

What Darcy hadn't thought about was that all of the Avengers were busy and unable to help her if she got into trouble. She hadn't really taken her own safety into account, never believing the Secretary of State would have her kidnapped.

The day after the show, she was snatched right off the street as she was getting out of her car at her favorite coffee shop. Hindsight made her realize she had taunted Murphy again and she cursed her kidnappers quite creatively while lying on the floor of a large van with a black bag over her head and her hands tied behind her back, ankles duct taped together. At least she iwas/is lying down until one of the creeps jerked her upright and punched her in the face to shut her up.

She couldn't help but mumble, "I'm sooo going to find a way to make you regret that, you douche."

Rough hands grabbed her once more, but before they could hit her again there was the sound of breaking glass, a short, ripping noise and a wheezing gasp before the hands let her fall back to the floor of the van.

Suddenly there were loud yells, screeching tires and the vehicle flipped on its side, slamming her into one of the walls of it and a dead weight fell across her lower body.

She's pretty sure she must have blacked out at that point because when she came to, the bag was off her head and her hands and feet were untied. Turning her head, she noticed someone's jacket under her head as a pillow. Then she realized she was again lying on the floor of some kind of vehicle, but from the way her stomach just got left behind it must be an aircraft that was dropping out of the sky. She groaned, "Ohhhh, I'm gonna throw up!"

Someone came close and put something on her neck, then held both her wrists, pinching certain pressure points. They were talking to her, too, but she couldn't hear them for the pounding of her blood through her skull as she realized how much the back of her head hurt. That did it, a litany of pains began to make themselves known; her face, left shoulder and forearm, (she thinks she landed on that side when the van flipped) her hips and the toes of her left foot all throb in time with her heartbeat.

As the nausea started to subside, she was able to breathe a little deeper and that made her ribs on the left side seriously start to complain. "Thank you," she breathed.

Clint's smile was noticeable in his voice, "You're welcome, Kiddo."

"Who's flying this thing," she asked, curious.

"Nat."

Darcy nodded slightly, "Thanks to her, too." She winced and couldn't help it, she started to cuss a blue streak interspersed with threats to certain parts of the anatomies of the kidnappers that had grabbed her.

There was a beep and a low chuckle and Clint said, "Yeah man, she's gonna be okay. I won't lie, she's a little banged up, but it's nothing that won't heal." A pause and then, "Yeah, that's her and you heard right. No, I don't know if that's anatomically possible, but she is _pissed off_ so I wouldn't put it past her to make it happen if we gave her half a chance."

Darcy wound down her cursing and demanded, "Who are you talking to? If it's Steve, give me the phone!" Keeping her eyes closed, she made a grabby motion with the fingers of her right hand and something was placed in it. She put it to her ear. "Hey you."

Steve's voice sounded relieved, "I'm so glad to hear your voice, Baby Girl. How bad are you hurt?"

She made a disparaging noise, "I'll survive, just don't take any pictures of me for a while. Pretty sure I've got a split lip and a black eye, so that's going to be fun and breathing deep kinda makes my ribs hurt. I haven't looked yet, but I'm pretty sure my pedicure on my left foot is ruined."

She could hear the smile in his voice as he told her, "As soon as you're up to it, I'll make sure you get another one. In fact, how about if we schedule you a full day at a really nice spa," his tone was cajoling.

She heard Clint get up and go towards the front of the quinjet and sniffled, "So I get rewarded for poking the bear?"

There was laughter on the line, "Which one? I've only seen some of what got dumped online, there's too much. So there are multiple choices for who grabbed you, but yes, I'll reward you. You deserve it after everything you've done as well as what you've just gone through."

"I miss you," Darcy told him, her chin wobbling a bit.

There was a pause and then he continued, "I miss you, too, Baby Girl. I'm doing some stuff for T'Challa that will take me about three weeks or so, but I'll see you when I'm done, okay?"

She brightened, "Really?"

His smile was audible in his voice, "Really. Now you do what the doctors tell you and get better quick, so that you can have that spa day on me, okay?"

Her smile got mischievous, "Can I get the hot rock massage and the seaweed wrap?"

He laughed, "Whatever you want, it'll be on me."

Darcy sighed wistfully, "You're the best!"


End file.
